


anything that just costs money is cheap

by MiniNephthys



Category: End Roll (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-13
Updated: 2016-09-13
Packaged: 2018-08-14 21:55:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8030248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MiniNephthys/pseuds/MiniNephthys
Summary: Don't get attached.  It applies to everything.





	anything that just costs money is cheap

The absolute number one rule in Raymond’s life is ‘don’t get attached’.

It applies to everything. Don’t get attached to objects, you might lose them. Don’t get attached to girls, she might turn out to be obsessive and you’ll want to drop her like a hot potato. (Case in point: Fairia.)

And no matter what, whatever you do, be one hundred percent certain never to get too attached to dreamers.

Most of them are homicidal maniacs who feel no guilt over their actions: it’s why they were selected for the program, after all. If they weren’t awful people, they wouldn’t be on death row to begin with. So it’s easy enough to only take an interest in their money, or to pay no more attention to his surroundings than a dream deserves.

Raymond checks out his assigned dreamers’ case files beforehand: it might help with winning them over in order to empty their pockets if he knows them better. Serial killer, torturer, aircraft hijacker…

That works just fine for him. Even with beautiful women, some of whom flirt back at him, he knows better than to get involved with someone who’s likely to die and for a very good reason. These people deserve it, so who cares? Not him.

...This woman’s capital offense is espionage for some country they’re not at war with just yet, but definitely not happy with right now. She holds her head high when he approaches her.

“I don’t have any interest in anything you’re trying to sell,” she says, when he makes his offer.

“You sure?” he asks. “Dreams can get pretty dangerous, and this Homeward Rootie might come in handy.”

“I’m going to die soon,” she replies, not quite flippantly but with a sense of dignity he doesn’t usually see in dreamers. “I have no guilt for what I did for my country. What does it matter whether I die in a dream or in the electric chair?”

“That’s…” He doesn’t have much of a response for that. After a moment or two too long, he says, “You’re really not gonna buy anything, huh.”

She nods.

“Well, it was nice talking to you. Take care now,” he says, and makes his exit.

He ‘loses’ the Homeward Rootie on the way out, and gets scolded for it. He has no idea whether or not she picked it up, because true to her word, she fails the experiment for lack of guilt and is executed.

After that, he doesn’t read their files anymore.

It gets easier again, eventually. Not as soon as he’d like, but he’s able to separate doing his job from the fact that these dreamers are all going to die soon. Even the pretty women, even the teenagers, even people whose dreams seem peaceful enough that he’s practically sure there can’t be much to be guilty about in the first place.

This kid, Russell, is the youngest they’ve given the drug to: fourteen, barely old enough to be on death row in the first place. That’s as much as Raymond will let himself know beforehand.

Don’t get attached.


End file.
